Opinion: IRS's Bald Plunder

12/3/2012 1:53PM

Leisure & Arts editor Eric Gibson on how the federal governments' heavy-handed regulation forced heirs of an art dealer to choose between giving a work of art away at no benefit or holding on to it for a hefty fee. Photo: John Wronn

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... I ... all the look wide arc of the story that really belongs and Ripley's believe it or not ... there it gives them the Journal's leisure and arts editor will relate the fantastic tale involving art by the late Robert Rocher for welcome Eric thanks to ... Eric up on art dealer named Julianna sunburnt one of our work by Roche over Gold ... Canyon which happened include a real stop bald eagle ... that's when the fun began ... that is when the fun began ... and she was for the most prominent contemporary art dealers of the of the fifties sixties and seventies she died ... in two thousand and seven leaving a ... large collection of works by around converge on normal people like that it was valued at about one billion dollars ... her errors to restate paid ... over four hundred million dollars estate tax on that it had to sell six hundred million dollars worth of art ... to raise the money to pay the tax on one object in her collection was this work can begin to inspire an ocean burn it's been referred to as the company which is a kind of a large scale ... treated national cooperation born in the elements of the St ... what's this stuff Baltic Eagle on a sticky note ... and it's taking on too ... why I wouldn't waste while practically ... and ... this ... is the point ... that I'm ... I'm a value on it of zero dollars because he could not be sold without ... breaking into law on this one relating to endangered species one passed in nineteen forty the other nineteen eighteen ... the women a criminal offense to sell this war ... so because it was unassailable their three appraisers one of which was Christie's auction house value to zero ... the IRS came back and said ... we value it at sixty million dollars ... you stay with my taxes and we want taxes ... the estate ... refused and valuation because they said that Apple's Norges you can't ... put a monetary value want something that has no value in the marketplace ... the are arrested and upped the ante and came back with not only a valuation much higher sixty five billion dollars ... but they assessed a special penalty call them undervaluation penalty of ... just over eleven million dollars and this is for ... parties to end their feud deliberately ... in ... the car is grossly undervalued at their proper sold it sounded so being owners of this route driver were being pushed over what we'll call the aren't included in the article and that something that they would want to so what are they end up doing ... will bear their position was that since it had zero value they would be well and couldn't be sold ... they would be willing to donate it to a museum ... but ... acknowledging that they would have to do so without taking any of the tax deductions to recruit people donating appreciated property ... so they they ... did this in exchange for the Irish cropping the forty plus million dollars tax bill so ... it's now in the collection to be using a border are currently on display ... so well one has to ask is this a one off or ... our future works of art to be put in the same of both well did it does have serious implications for four proceed with a modern contemporary art ... market because since Picasso when Brock began ... putting pen to paper on their canvases makes extended their pain ... artists have always used ... on Orthodox materials and ... it's not beyond the realm of possibility that other artworks could be singled out Damien Hirst has won and he does come to mind that one of the hot shot his best known for the shark in formaldehyde ... of but he's also made ... three what he calls Haschke Ricky sculptors which are literally ... sculptures that that consists mainly of cigarette box ... cigarette packaging back lash ... and it's conceivable that in the anti smoking climate we live in one day those could ... face ... in the same penalty the canyon and they could be declared